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| 1789-1799:
the industrial town and the law code |
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San Leucio community starts with the proclamation
of the Law Code and counts over 200 people. The technical organization
is more evolved and coincides with a wider plan of a big industrial
city, abruptly interrupted by the French Revolution in 1799. In those
years the technique of tapestry improves and the final product passes
the boundary of the Reign of the two Sicilies to be welcomed at courts
and the nobility in Europe. Ferdinand IV was able to bind San Leucio
and the silk, starting an avant-garde social experiment in Europe.
A tie which has been strengthened through the centuries and resists
still today.
The story begins in 1773, when the young Ferdinand encloses the area
around the old baronial cottage of the Belvedere, where he organized
hunting.
More and more charmed by this area, immersed in
nature and far from the court’s rumours, Ferdinand, worried for
the future of the numerous children living in the borough and deprived
of an education, opened the first public school of Italy, compulsory
and free. The most skilled experts in the art of silk manufacture
came from far away to teach silk manufacturing, built the machinery
and managed the production. The king promoted the growing of mulberry-trees
and breeding silk worms for the production of silk, thus creating
a whole production cycle. Silk manufacture made it possible to employ
women and men at the same time. The king gave to each family a loom
to keep inside houses, at the centre of the room, so that family members
could love and hand down the art of silk manufacture.
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Virtual tour in San Leucio |
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